In this episode Claire Bown is joined by Dr Beth Daley, novelist, creative writing tutor and editorial advisor at Europeana, to explore how digital cultural heritage collections can become starting points for storytelling, exploration and creative engagement.

Europeana brings together millions of artworks, objects, photographs, films, texts and archival materials from museums, libraries and archives across Europe. But access alone is not enough. Beth shares how the platform invites people to move from browsing to creating through prompts, activities, and collaborative spaces.

This episode will resonate with anyone working in museums, galleries or cultural institutions who is interested in using digital collections as a starting point for storytelling, creative engagement and new ways of working with cultural heritage.

The Art Engager is written and presented by Claire Bown. Editing is by Matt Jacobs and Claire Bown. Music by Richard Bown. Support on Patreon

Episode Links:

Dr Beth Daley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-daley-a032b537/

https://www.europeana.eu/

https://pro.europeana.eu/post/join-our-events-for-writers-and-get-creative-with-cultural-heritage - this one covers all our activities including the following:

https://pro.europeana.eu/event/europeana-writers-room-monthly-creative-writing-workshops - Europeana Writers' Room registration

https://www.europeana.eu/en/stories/six-ways-to-play-with-europeana-story-dice - Europeana story dice

https://pro.europeana.eu/page/seven-tips-for-digital-storytelling - in 16 languages

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-daley-a032b537/ - my LinkedIn profile

https://bethdaley.substack.com/ - my Substack page

Europeana's social media:

https://www.facebook.com/Europeana

https://bsky.app/profile/europeana.bsky.social

https://www.linkedin.com/company/europeana

https://www.instagram.com/europeana_eu/

Show Links:

✨ If you've enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting The Art Engager on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheArtEngager

Or pick up a copy of my book, The Art Engager, for step-by-step guidance on creating meaningful, interactive guided experiences https://www.theartengager.com/

Buy it here on Amazon.com: https://tinyurl.com/buytheartengager

Hello and welcome to The Art Engager podcast with me, Claire Bown.

I'm here to share techniques and tools to help you engage with your audience

and bring art objects and ideas to life.

So let's dive into this week's show.

Hello, and welcome back to The Art Engager Podcast.

I'm Claire Bown, and today I'm chatting with Dr. Beth Daley about how

digital cultural heritage can become a starting point for storytelling,

exploration, and meaningful engagement.

Beth is a novelist, writing tutor and editorial advisor at Europeana, a

platform that brings together millions of artworks, objects, and archival materials

from organizations across Europe.

In our conversation, we explore what Europeana is and how people

navigate such a. Vast digital archive.

We talk about what happens when access isn't enough and what

helps people move from browsing to actually creating, contributing, or

communicating with what they find.

Beth shares how initiatives like the Europeana Writer's Room and

story dice provide structured low barrier ways into storytelling.

And we also unpack seven digital storytelling tips that offer a

practical checklist for anyone shaping stories online from cultural

professionals to independent creators.

So if you are interested in how digital heritage can spark ideas, support

learning, or open up new ways of working with material from the past, there's

plenty in this conversation to think with.

I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Hi Beth, and welcome to The Art Engager Podcast.

Dr Beth Daley: Thank you very much.

It's lovely to be here.

Thank you for having me.

We always start with, uh, an opening question, asking you to

tell us who you are and what you do.

Dr Beth Daley: Okay, so my name is Beth Daley and I'm a writer, a

cultural and creative writer, and a Europeana's editorial advisor.

That's my job title.

So I work with Europeana on engaging audiences, and that's anybody

in Europeana's work and content.

But specifically because I'm a writer, my interest is writing and storytelling.

I work on engaging writers and the networks support them in letting

them know that your Europeana exists and how they can use it.

Outside of your Europeana,

Um, I've got a PhD in creative writing, published a novel, and

I've run workshops and, and so on myself as a, a freelance writer.

So you've got many strands and many skills to your bow.

Uh, you're a novelist, creative writing tutor.

You are editorial advisor at Europeana.

So how do these different strands of your work come together?

Dr Beth Daley: Um, well, I think the thrust of it is that, um, Europeana

is this huge database of material that's really useful for telling

stories and I love telling stories.

Uh, I am a writer, so bringing those two things together is

really quite exciting for me.

Quite an unusual position as well, I think to have.

Absolutely.

And for those who are new to it let's talk a little bit about what Europeana is now.

I've used it many times.

I've gone down many a rabbit hole, um, on the platform, but perhaps

you could spell it out for everyone listening what it is, who might

use it, and how they might use it

Dr Beth Daley: Absolutely.

So Europeana is a website.

It's funded by the European Commission.

And basically it's a website you can go to search for digital cultural heritage.

So think of it as Europe's digital museum, or library or archive.

So it gives you access to, I think currently 61 million things.

So that might be pictures or photographs or artworks.

It might be sound files, it might be videos, texts, or books or even 3D models.

And those cover sort of almost any subject you can think of.

If you think of all the, the libraries and museums that cover

these vast range of subjects about, human history and heritage.

It's all there on one website.

And the idea is one that you, that it's there, that it exists, you can go and look

at it, but two, that you can also use it.

So you can use it for learning, you can use it for research, you can use it for

creative purposes, or you can just go and, you know, have a bit of fun exploring it

So the way you just described it as a sort of content platform with

access to all these amazing collections.

But when someone arrives on the platform for the first time, what do you hope

they feel invited to do or to explore?

How might they use this platform specifically?

Okay,

Dr Beth Daley: so the first thing you'll see is a search bar.

And so it's just like any other website you've been on where you, you

search for something, you think of something you're interested in, you

type in the search and you get results.

Let's say I might look for mermaids.

I might type in the word mermaids and I'll get pictures and texts and all sorts

of things about mermaids from museums and libraries across Europe and beyond.

And then there are are filters.

So you might, you might put a search and it gets you.

Literally millions of things back.

So you need to narrow it down so you can narrow it down by where

it comes from what language that, that the information is written in.

Even colors that are included in, in the pictures, you can search

by color, which is quite fun.

So that's one way, but you might not know what you want to search for.

So there are other ways as well exploring the collections.

There's a page called collections, which kind of has curated.

Um, groupings of the items.

So you look at thematic things like industrial heritage or

fashion, you can look at galleries that people have created.

So that's, um, either our team or partners or members of the public creating their

own, selections of things and then having them published our website.

And there's a bit on there that I particularly like, which is

called Popular Items so you can see what people have been looking at.

So that constantly changes and it's always, uh, really interesting.

And if you're a writer, which well we'll get to in a minute, that's

a great place to go to because you are always gonna get something

new that you can use as a prompt.

And in addition to that there's a page called Stories, which is where you

can find blog posts and exhibitions that our team or our partners

have written which brings together those items, which can be from.

But the magic of Europeana is that you bring together collections from

different countries and different types of institutions so you get a greater

context about a particular topic.

So those stories and exhibitions present that to you rather than you having to

go and look at each individual item.

So there's loads of different ways that you can explore Europeana, and I would

say just go for it and have a go because you can't break anything and you'll find

something that interests you of that.

I have absolutely no doubt.

Yeah.

And I see it very much as this kind of invitation to play as well.

Yeah, we can, we'll get onto that, I'm sure.

But also being part of some sort of community, maybe connecting

personally with some of the, um, objects and items that are there, even

maybe an opportunity to slow down.

But we are gonna talk first about using those images as kind

of inspiration and research for writers almost as a springboard.

So I think much of your work at Europeana involves inviting people to engage

creatively with the objects there, with artworks and heritage collections.

And this is often through writing.

So let's start by thinking about what is it about starting from

collections that makes it easier to start writing than when you are

sitting down with a pen and a paper and you're faced with the the blank page?

Dr Beth Daley: Yeah, well I think one of the things to sort of remember is

that writers have always used libraries.

Libraries have always been a place that writers can go for information to search

things, but also for community as well.

And so if writers have used libraries, you know, as long as

libraries have existed, why not?

Why wouldn't they wanna use an online version as well?

So that was where our sort of thinking started from.

And, um.

I think there's two main ways to, to use the collections.

One is for inspiration and one is for specific research.

If you are looking, you know, if you're writing a book and you've got

specific questions about, let's say 18th century, uh, fashions in France, you

could go and find something like that.

But in terms of inspiration and, and how to get started with a piece of writing.

I think it's, it's wonderful because you look up something,

you bring up a, a random search or you just pick something from that

popular item section, for example.

And there's the starting point.

You don't have a blank page, you have a starting point already.

You have an image.

Um, and you might have a little bit of information.

How much information there is about an item.

Very much depends.

Some have a lot, some don't have much, but you've always got something to begin with.

So you can just, I, I love free writing so you can just set your timer for,

let's say three minutes and say, okay, I dunno what's gonna happen, but I'm

gonna use this image, or I'm gonna watch this video and I'm gonna just

see what happens and I'm gonna write.

And I'm always.

Fascinated because this is what we do in the events we run, is that

you give one prompt one visual artwork, for example, and everybody

comes up with something completely different, which is just wonderful.

So I said there were 61 million things in Europeana, and that means

there is 61 million stories to tell because all of those things have,

well, let's, it's infinite 'cause they have more than one story.

But that's so many things that you can use as a starting point.

Um, I think it's really interesting.

You can find things that you know you just didn't know were there.

If you think about all the things that are in, um, museum stores that they don't

get a chance to put in the, the physical museum, like lots of those things are in

Europeana because they've been digitized.

Maybe partly because they can't go on display or, you know, for other reasons.

And so you can have access to stuff that you wouldn't normally have access

to, sort of in physical, real life.

So.

It's a treasure trove.

It's a world of wonder, I think.

Dr Beth Daley: Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, it's really thinking about kind of removing that pressure of

having to come up with something from scratch and the object or item

or thing that you are looking at is there, is that kind of inspiration.

Um, and as you say, it can bring up all sorts of things, can spark curiosity

and you know, it can bring up all sorts of different perspectives as well.

But you also mentioned that there's 61 million items there.

So with large digital collections or with any digital collection,

and I find this myself that I tend to go down a bit of a rabbit hole.

So it's very interesting to start with.

I'll start looking at one thing that will lead to somewhere else and somewhere else.

And before I know it, a few hours have gone past.

Yeah.

So what helps move people from just looking at the material which in

itself is a very pleasurable activity, to actively doing something with it.

Dr Beth Daley: That's a great question and I'm so pleased to hear that you

enjoy, uh, this kind of exploration.

And I think that's the first thing.

Enjoy the rabbit hole at least for a while because you can find, like

I say, things that you didn't know existed and get some really good

inspiration from what you find.

There are a few, ways that you can collect or maybe start to narrow

down what it is you're looking at.

So I would encourage people to create a free account on Europeana so that

you can make your own gallery so you can keep the things that you really,

really like and come back to them.

And then maybe start to think about I create galleries depending on themes

and depending on what I'm working on and what I'm i'm looking at, you can hold

onto it and come back to it later and go, oh yeah, I really loved that one.

I'm gonna do something with that.

Um, but we also put together we have created events and programs that people

can join in with so that they can have a goal and have an outcome and get together

and, and do something with other people.

So for example, we have our monthly Europeana writers Room.

So you can come along to that and, um, I will do the rabbit hole for you.

I will have a theme and present you with some visual artworks or

objects and give you prompts so that you can start something there.

, We also take part in 'gif it up' every year, which is a contest using

open collections, Europeana and others to create animated gifts.

So if you are technically minded like that, you might want

to use that as your outcome.

Um, we also sometimes run collage workshops or we have a, a collage book

you can download and use to make collages like coloring books, which are very nice.

And if you are very technically minded and you would like to use some of this stuff.

Uh, for, for example, video games or web uh, projects, we have APIs as well

so that people can import particular searches, what have you, from the

Europeana massive dataset and, and include them in, in some kind of

creative digital project like that.

So there are lots of concrete ways, um, that we offer that you can do something

practical with your rabbit hole findings.

I guess with your experience, the platform has been going for a

number of years now, um, and there's lots of different formats that you

offer, but have you learned more about the different kinds of support people

need to be able to engage creatively with digital heritage in this way?

Dr Beth Daley: Yeah, that's a good question and I think the first thing is.

People knowing that the resource exists, that Europeana is there for them.

And after that, you know, creative people will do creative things, uh,

you know, if given the resource.

So that's the really big one, I think.

The second thing is knowing about licensing, which might be a bit

boring, but it's really important if you're gonna do something,

uh, especially professionally with culture, heritage content.

So on Europeana, every single item has, a rights statement.

So that means you can see if it's in copyright.

If it's in the public domain or if it's one of the sort creative commons licenses

that lies somewhere between those things.

So you can see whether you can use it.

And there's a really useful filter, uh, when you're filtering down your results

that literally says, can I use this?

And your options are divided into Yes, yes.

With limitations, I think.

And possibly you'll have to contact the.

The provider to find out.

So Europeana doesn't own these items.

The, the museums and libraries and archives own the cultural heritage items.

We just display them and give access to them.

So we are not in charge of the licensing.

So we show what can be done with that item.

And then if you wanna know more about it, you have to go through

to the providing institution and see what you can do with it.

But I think about 50% of the items on your piano are what we call open licenses.

So you can use them, but either in the public domain or they are licensed such

that you are permitted to use them.

And it is always good practice to say where you've got them from to credit

them, um, and to license whatever you're doing with that in the same

way as those licenses allow you to.

So that's really important, knowing about licensing.

Um, and then like you said earlier you can go down rabbit holes, but

you might want more structure.

So that's support that we offer and that we are continuing to develop.

So we are starting to work on more tutorials, um, and workshops and having

these downloadable resources like the collage book that I mentioned, and we

have story dice, which are particularly useful for writers and, uh, people working

with young people perhaps in education, um, working on creativity or writing the

story that are really useful for that.

And like I say, we're working more on this area, so if anyone has any thoughts

about what they would need to be able to implement Europeana's resources in

whatever field they work in, do get in touch because we'd love to hear from you.

So you've mentioned, uh, some of the creative tools and activities

and structures that Europeana has created alongside the collections on the platform.

Um, can we go back to the writer's room?

'cause I think this sounds, uh, super interesting, kind community for

writers happens on a monthly basis.

Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of space it is and

what does meeting regularly make possible for the participants?

Dr Beth Daley: Okay, so the Europeana Writer's Room happens once a month,

usually on the first Wednesday of the month, and it's a session that takes

place on Zoom, uh, facilitated by myself.

And every month we have a theme.

Um, so the one coming up, uh, that I'm working on right now is about creativity

from uncertainty because there is so much uncertainty and anxiety in the world at

the moment, and I thought it would be nice to, let's just explore that little

bit using culture, heritage collections.

So what we do is meet together on Zoom and we go into, we use

something called Mentimeter.

Which is, an online, experience, user QR code or, or a link to get into it.

And the prompts and the questions appear on your screen or on your

phone, and you can answer on there.

And then all the results show on the zoom screen so that we can

all see what we've done together.

So we can create, uh, like word clouds to answer a question

or short answers to a prompt.

So it might be I put up a picture and say.

Just simply how does this make you feel?

And people put some emotions up there, or, um, we've got one coming up on women

in mythology, so I've been thinking about the kinds of questions I could ask there

About, um, Scheherazade the 1001 nights and how each of her

stories ended in a cliffhanger.

So I'm gonna ask people to write a cliffhanger, you

know, just a short sentence.

And then we, we have a little look at them and we just kind of.

Enjoy the fact that everybody has put in something different.

And so they're kind of warmups.

And then we go to sort of free writing.

So we usually have three five minute free writes.

Again, themed on whatever the theme is we're talking about at that moment.

And people have five minutes quiet to write on their own.

So that's not in the Mentimeter, this is not shared, it's just is for themselves.

And then if they wish to, they tell me in the chat, you know, how they've

got on whether they enjoyed it which ones they got stuck on, which ones

kind of flowed better for them.

Sometimes people share what, a little bit of what they've written,

but they, they don't have to, that.

Not why we are there.

The purpose of it is to give people a chance to get over their blank

page, a chance to have an hour of creativity in their month, and we find

we get some really lovely comments and feedback to say that just simply

that is really valuable for people.

And I think especially, you know, people who are working really hard,

really busy, maybe even at technical jobs or whatever, they, having an hour

of creativity is hugely valuable to them and more so than they kind of

think when they join at the beginning.

So the writers' rooms are a low barrier to access.

I think they're really easy to join in.

It's a really gentle space for people to come.

And.

The different themes every month being that there's always new stories

to tell and keep people coming back.

And we've only started this in September, 2025, so we're developing, a group

of people who are returning, which is really nice to see while still

getting new people every time as well.

So it's developing and it's, it's really.

Really lovely to see that people are enjoying it and that they're starting

to use Europeana for this purpose.

Yeah, it's such a, a lovely idea that kind of safeguarding

that time, even if it's an hour a month to be creative, to explore

some wonderful images or whatever you might be bringing up for them.

I love the sound of that.

And you also mentioned the story dice.

These are really playful.

Can you perhaps describe them to our listeners who may not

be able to see them right now?

And.

Tell us a little bit about what you were hoping these story dice

might make easier for people, uh, encountering digital heritage.

Dr Beth Daley: Absolutely.

So these story dice we launched on World Storytelling Day last year, and it is a

PDF download that you can get from the website that you then cut out and fold up.

And what you end up with is six cubes.

Cardboard or paper, whatever you printed them out on with a

different picture on each side.

So they're dice and they've got pictures on each side.

And each dice has a different theme.

So there might be one with characters.

So portraits from the collections of people, different genders, different ages.

We've got one with, uh, again, uh, portraits, but they're.

That's for different expressions, different moods.

We've got one with landscapes and weather.

We've got one with transport.

There's one with some lovely random objects on it.

So you can roll the dice and choose an image and well, it's open-ended, so

how you use it is completely up to you.

But they're really good for individuals or for group work.

Um, let's say you could use it to, for, for storytelling or you could use it some

kind of problem solving or discussion.

And on the website we've got, um, six examples of different ways to use them.

And that webpage is translated into all the Europeana Union languages.

Um, and the story dice itself don't have any text on them, so there.

Uh, easy to use for anybody in any language, which is great.

So for an example, you could roll all six dice and then try to write a story

or tell a story that includes the images that are on the top when you throw them.

Or maybe you're in a group and the first person rolls one and they

start the story, then the next person rolls another one and incorporates

whatever they see on that one.

There's also a few games on there.

Uh, there's a way of using it like as a Beatle drive kind of game, or maybe it's

consequences, you know, where everybody adds a, a to a story as you go along.

But like I said, it's open-ended, so it really is up to, um.

To facilitator or person using them to see where it takes.

And also just really beautiful.

So if you just print them out on a nice card and have them in your

room or in your office, there was something tactile to sort of be around,

they're, they're really beautiful.

So wonderful resources that you developed.

I think you've also got some longer form support as well, training

courses, residencies, awards.

Can you talk a little bit about those options as well?

Dr Beth Daley: Yep, sure.

So we have something called the Europeana Academy, which offers free online

courses for a whole range of things.

So behind that Europeana EU website is a massive network of professionals and

processes and structures that makes.

Europeana happen.

So there are courses that are really technical that relate to some of

those processes, but there are also, um, storytelling courses.

So we've got one, uh, that introduces you to Europeana collections and stories.

And then we have another about how to tell great stories and, uh, and even

to write the Europeana if you want to.

And we, they are on the Europeana Academy constantly.

You can log on and take them, but we also every quarter run.

Uh, zoom sessions where I'll lead you through those courses so you can go and

do them and come back and feedback and ask questions and talk to, you know,

a cohort of people who are doing at the same time, which is really nice.

So there's that one.

Every year we run a digital storytelling festival, which takes place this

year on the 19th and 20th of May.

And that is an online, it's like a conference to do with.

Digital storytelling.

So we invite speakers from, not just from the culture, heritage sector, but from

beyond as well, that are doing really interesting things in storytelling.

And with that also includes workshops and sort of social moments like quizzes

or, uh, we've had sessions where we listen to, uh, music together and

answer questions as we go through.

And from that storytelling festival.

We heard from our audiences that they'd really like, uh, the

opportunity to dive in deeper.

So we've got the workshops in that festival, but they'd

like to do something more.

So we developed the online Creative Residency, which is in its fourth year

and has just opened for applications.

They closed on the 20th of March.

And that is where we have, uh, we invite participants to, um.

To use your piano collections on a particular theme in a range of

formats to produce something new.

So this year our theme is science, which is very broad, and we have

formats such as creative writing where people can, uh, produce, uh, some

poetry or prose or something else.

And things like stop motion animation, gif animation.

We've got video, social media.

We are developing, uh, walking tours this year, in fact.

And final one.

Is collage art, so you can apply for any one of those uh, formats

on your work with a mentor.

I'm the mentor for the creative writing section, and over a couple of months in

the the summer we were in workshops, we help people navigate the website, learn

about the licensing I mentioned earlier.

Learn how to use that cultural heritage to, to create something

in their chosen format.

And then we hopefully see that published on Europeana or on a, on

a, a relevant social media platform or YouTube or what have you.

And that means that the participants get, they, first of all, they get to,

they get to learn together with a group.

They also get one-to-one skill building with a, with an expert

in that area, which is, uh.

Is really valuable to them.

And particularly we found that students and young people don't

necessarily always get that one-to-one mentoring anymore at universities.

It's changed quite a lot since, since I was at university, so

having that opportunity can be really, really valuable to them.

Yeah.

And there was one more that you mentioned, the awards, the Europeana

Creative Climate Action Award.

We have run for the first time this year, applications are

closed and we're in the middle of judging, so the Europeana network.

Which is one of those one of those structures behind the Europeana,

uh, sort of initiative has uh, lemme start that one again.

So the Europeana has, uh, something called the Europeana Network Association,

which is a huge network of professionals who are interested in culture and

heritage, or in technology or in both.

And they can join the network and contribute to sort of the

Europeana initiative as a whole.

And it has, a selection of communities and one of them is about climate action.

So we have joined forces with the Climate Action Community this

year to run our first ever ANA Creative Climate Action award.

So what we did was we created a gallery of images on Europeana that related to

nature and climate, and then we asked people to respond to them in the less

than 500 words of poetry or prose.

And we are in the process of judging those and we hope to have

an exhibition with the winners, uh, for a Earth Day later this year.

And hopefully to run something similar again in the future because

we've had a really good response.

People like to have that specific way of interacting with the collections

and producing something, but they also like to be able to interact with, I

guess the issues of today, like the things that are relevant to them.

So climate action is one of those things.

So using this historical heritage material, but.

Interacting with a relevant sort of modern problem is, has been really valuable.

So a huge range of tools, activities courses,

platforms, residencies, wards, all the things that you described there.

And I think it was really useful to kind of go through them all, um, because

now I'd like to really think about the listeners of this podcast, many of whom

work in museums or heritage organizations, and how might they think of using or use

Europeana as a resource when designing their own creative or story storytelling

activities around collections.

Dr Beth Daley: That's a really great question.

I think what some of the things that we've learned about designing

these creative engagements.

Is that, um, and things that then other people could do too is that

it's important to allow people that time to explore the collections.

You know, you mentioned loving doing that and going down that rabbit

hole, and I think it's important that you get chance to do that.

To build familiarity with the collections and the themes that

you might be interested in.

Um, we like to give people that chance to understand, you know, the search functions

and, and the copyright you know, the right statements that they might need to know

about before they embark on their project.

We also like to make the sessions and the interactions really practical.

So that you are giving participants some, some space and some dedicated time to, to

learn or to create or to make something.

We also encourage exploration in sort of small iterative ways.

Like I said, the writer's room is, it has these very small little, uh, warmups

and then free writes, um, so that you can build, um, on a theme and, and

develop a bit of confidence, I think, as well, rather than going straight into a

huge endeavor, you can go step by step.

So yeah, it's more about the process than the end result some of the time.

Um, I think being able to use cultural heritage collections means that your

participants can explore their own interests as well, and their own

backgrounds and their own cultural heritage and incorporate that.

So I think it's nice to be open to what their participants will bring to

a session or to a project rather than necessarily give them everything and say,

right, your, these are your boundaries.

Allow them to bring their own experiences to those projects as well.

And I think that's super interesting as well because, it's less

a case of opening up the collection for people to have a good dig around and more

about thinking, okay, we have that, but what, what can we offer on top of that

might enable people to engage in different ways with what we have in our collections?

And you've also developed this set of seven digital storytelling tips.

Can you briefly explain something about those and why those were created?

Dr Beth Daley: So yeah, we have seven tips for cultural heritage professionals,

but they are really applicable to storytelling in all sorts of settings.

So you don't need to be a cultural heritage professional

to, to benefit from them.

I'll tell you about where they came from.

We had what we call a task force, so kind of like a working group of, of

professionals from our network that I mentioned earlier, um, who came together

to explore the idea of Europeana being a powerful platform for storytelling.

Um, which is something that the Europeana, um, commission had called it.

And I thought to myself, well, what does it mean to be a powerful

platform for storytelling?

How can we develop this?

So this task force of, I think about 26, 28 people from different countries

all around world came together online during COVID, actually it was

our first fully online task force.

And we.

Looked at storytelling experiences digital storytelling

experiences online that we liked.

That was a single criteria was go out and find something that you enjoy or

you react to emotionally and recreated a long list of these experiences.

So they might have been videos that might have been exhibitions,

there might have been little games, there might have been social media

series of posts, anything like that.

And then we sort of analyzed them.

And we came up with a short list of three sort of very different experiences.

And we looked at, okay, well we liked them.

That was our criteria, but what did those, uh, creators of those

experiences do to make us like them?

And outta that, we came up with this sort of trend of approaches.

That creators tend to use and we enjoy their experiences.

So these, I think the seven things that are not rocket science.

They're, uh, very straightforward and they're really, really good

checklist, I think for when you are starting a storytelling project.

And that might be your.

Developing a website or you're developing a presentation that you're gonna do, or,

uh, you know, writing, writing an article.

And you can use 'em as a checklist at the beginning, but also if you start to get

stuck, you might think, well, something's not quite right, but I'm not sure.

You can come back to this list of storytelling tips and go, okay, I see.

Now I, I've missed out that one.

Not that you would use all seven necessarily every time.

And then, you know, when you get to the end, have I hit all these points

or is there anything that's weaker?

So I'll tell you very briefly what they are.

You can go on, uh, a website and find all sorts of different formations of them.

We've got a video, we've got infographics, we've got them in many languages.

Um, so I won't go into huge detail of them now, but things like be

personal and I think we often forget that we can do that as professionals.

I think.

We maybe start to, we we're good at storytelling when we're younger because

it comes naturally, it's a very human thing, but through education and

through professional structures, we kind of lose that ability to connect

with ourselves, I think, as well.

And the human elements, this is all about bringing the human

element back into it, really.

So be personal.

Why do you connect with the story?

Who in the story can you connect with?

How can you connect with the audiences?

Uh, be informal but expert.

So that's about being accessible.

So we don't wanna inundate people with too much academic or technical language sort

meet people in the language that they use.

Really important for cultural heritage is about telling hidden stories.

So lots of the collections that we have across Europe and the world tell history

from quite a one-sided perspective.

So have a look and see whose voice is not being heard there.

What else can you tell, which is quite hard if it's not there front of you.

But you can also use your audiences to help you discover and to

contribute to telling those stories.

Uh, specifically for, um, visual storytelling, illustrate your points.

So you can use the culture heritage material, or you could

use video, you could use diagrams.

You can break up your story with illustrations and signpost your journey.

So this is all about letting the audience know that they're in good

hands, that they're being taken through the journey with a, you know, they've

got a good leader to take them through.

So that might be to do with.

Navigation on a website, making sure your navigation is sensible and easy to follow.

Might be to do with headings and subheadings, making sure that A,

they exist and B, they useful, which is also really good for, you

know, SEO and that kind of thing.

Then the last two, you know, be specific.

This is one that always surprised me a little bit.

'cause when we looked at the examples, my instinct would be that people,

these storytelling experiences that were successful would kind of

give you a, a big picture and maybe then hone in on something specific.

But they didn't, they did the opposite.

They started with something maybe specific and they held onto that maybe expanding

and contracting and going in different directions where they always held that

very specific goal or idea throughout.

Um.

And with writing as well, I would say lean on the detail.

That's really useful.

That's what brings writing to life.

So be specific.

And the final one, which I think is again, really difficult for professionals

sometimes is to be evocative.

So just because you are producing something professional doesn't

mean it can't be, uh, emotive.

Doesn't mean you can't play little bit or experiment with language.

Um, or structure, uh, I think just to have a go and what you do when you're

preparing a story doesn't have to be what, what goes out in the end if

indeed you're working on something that has a, a publication as an outcome.

So give yourself time and space to experiment and try things

and, uh, yeah, be evocative.

So they're really good for, for helping you scaffold your story,

but also to help you experiment.

So, bye.

I love these tips and I think they're really useful still several years

on after we put them together.

So I'd encourage anyone to go click on the link, find the seven storytelling

tips from Europeana, and, and I hope that they'll be really useful for people.

Yeah, I can see there would be, and we'll put the

link in the show notes as well.

I think it's very widely applicable to lots of different situations

and circumstances as well.

And I think they're so useful in helping people think about how stories are

communicated, not just what stories.

So when we are thinking about information in that way, how are we

sharing the information, not just what information we are sharing?

And it's always worth bearing that in mind.

You mentioned there for that kind of task force that you work across

countries and languages and cultures, and this must mean that you must have

learned a huge amount about designing these kind of creative invitations

that can work at scale at Europeana

Dr Beth Daley: So yeah, our website exists in all the EU languages.

We have our network, which has people from all over the world and it, and,

um, yeah, so there is so much culture and so much languages and experience

to be represented in the collection.

So we do try to, to reflect that as well in our experiences.

And with our creative sessions we do look for participants or centered approach.

We also have people who are like zine workshops, for example.

And we encourage people to sort of bring their own stories and values and

cultures to the sessions so that they find something meaningful to their.

But like also as I mentioned with the hidden stories element, there are

marginalized voices and perspectives that are entirely missing from

cultural heritage, um, collections.

We do have a group within the Europeana Foundation that works

on diversity and inclusion.

We have we contribute to Women's History Month, black history

month pride month with our.

Activities and with our editorial as well.

So we're always trying to look for ways to make sure that people feel that

they're represented in cultural heritage.

And as I mentioned earlier, the seven tips and the st story dice

resources that are translated into, into many languages as well.

So yeah we are conscious of the, the diversity of the audience and do try to

make sure that everybody can access and is represented and feels welcome and is safe.

We also it's quite interesting, have, um, inclusive engagement guidelines

for all of the events that we run, which we share at the beginning of

an event which I'm not sure so many organizations do yet, at least.

Um, so that is a really nice example I think of making sure that people feel

included and safe in our activities.

I love that.

So if a listener is listening to this and they're thinking, oh, I'm really keen

now to go and visit Europeana, what's one simple thing you'd encourage them to try?

Or where would you like them to start?

Dr Beth Daley: I think just dive in.

I mean, like I said earlier, you can't break anything.

It's a website.

So go to Europeana.eu, type something in and see what happens.

And yeah, I'll reiterate that I really like the today's popular

items section, which you could find on the collections page.

Or just go to the stories and dive in.

You can follow us on social media.

That's maybe a really easy way you don't have to think of

what you want to search for.

We'll share things that they're interesting and sort of timely

or relevant, um, as well.

So yeah, you can find us on places like Facebook and Blue Sky and LinkedIn and

Instagram and say, yeah, follow us.

Brilliant.

And what are you excited about for the coming year?

What's coming up for you?

You've mentioned the digital storytelling festival.

Anything else that you are working on?

Dr Beth Daley: I am looking forward to showcasing the winners of the

Climate Action Award because that's our, I say our first creative

writing contest of that kind.

So I'm really excited about that.

And also working on the online creative residency.

We're working this year with review as well, which is a, a platform that does

showcases ekphrastic writing, which is just writing inspired by artworks.

So that's where the online residency writing outcomes will be published.

So that's quite exciting.

And of course, as you mentioned, the Digital Storytelling Festival

on the 19th and 20th of May.

Brilliant.

So, um, how can people find out more about you?

Where are the best places to go?

You already mentioned social media, we'll put all the links in the

show notes, but is there anywhere else that people should go to?

Dr Beth Daley: Yeah, I mentioned if you wanna follow Europeana,

you can follow our social media.

I would suggest that you also, uh, sign up for our events newsletter

so you can join, uh, the events.

And if you want to follow me specifically, you can find me on LinkedIn and substack.

Brilliant.

Uh, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about amazing

work that you do at Europeana.

And yeah, thank you for having this chat.

Dr Beth Daley: Thank you.

So a huge thank you to Beth for being on the show today.

You can explore Europeana, find the story dice, the writer's room, and

the seven digital storytelling tips via the links in the show notes.

I'd really encourage you to click through and try something simple this week.

Perhaps start with one image and a five minute free write.

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I'll see you next time.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to The Art Engager podcast with me, Claire Bown.

You can find more art engagement resources by visiting my website,

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